Midsize trucks are retaining unprecedented value. If you own one, you're sitting on cash. The real question: When's the right time to buy new, sell used, or upgrade?

The Midsize Truck Buyer's Guide

The Midsize Truck Buyer's Guide

Ford's done with the Ranger—in the U.S., anyway. Ditto Dodge and the Dakota. The Chevy Colorado/GMC Canyon are on hiatus, to return in better form (we hope) next year. Even the sort-of-pickup Honda Ridgeline is on its last legs, with 2014 rumored as the last year before a sabbatical, supposedly to return as more of a true truck. All of which leaves the would-be buyer of a new midsize truck with few practical options: the Toyota Tacoma, Nissan Frontier . . . or trading up to a full-size pickup.

That third choice explains a lot about why there are fewer midsizers than ever: Smaller trucks present a dual-pronged problem for automakers. First, as midsize trucks grew and grew, from smaller "gardener" trucks to vehicles approaching three-quarters the size of a half-ton, their sales volume didn't get anywhere near that of full-size pickups. The slow sales meant that even the Toyota and Nissan stalwarts haven't seen significant R&D investments to improve fuel economy. Consider that the Tacoma V-6 and EcoBoost Ford F-150 both get an EPA-average 18 mpg, even though the F-150 is a larger truck with better towing/hauling capacity.

Secondly, the EPA's latest guidelines require less stringent fuel economy on vehicles with a bigger footprint. So, the bigger the truck, the easier it is to pass the regs. As a result, Dodge and Ford felt it was easier to quit the market entirely and focus on the F-150 and Ram than to pour money into building more fuel-efficient Rangers and Dakotas.

Small comfort for small-truck lovers. What's left of the not-so-big pickup market might have you wondering what to do if you're looking to buy or sell. On average, midsize trucks are at historically high resale values, which is good news is you own one. But if you're just weighing buying used versus new, the prospects are daunting. That's why we're offering our case-by-case, buy/sell/hold advice on most of the midsize models, to help you decide. And we're backing up our tips with data from industry guru Ricky Beggs at Black Book, since his job is to study not only where prices are today but also where they're going in the future.

Toyota Tacoma

Toyota Tacoma

Like the full-size model from Detroit Three, Tacoma sales are up big through August 2013—22 percent ahead of last year. One reason new sales have spiked is that the used Tacoma is the darling of the market. They just don't decline in value, and that's even considering a frame-rust debacle that saw the recall of tens of thousands of 1995–2004 Tacomas. More current Tacomas have excellent reliability rankings, however. And the recall only further tightened an already constrained used-midsize-truck pool.

All of which argues for buying a new $20,000-to-$30,000 Tacoma rather than shopping used, Ricky Beggs says. "There's too high a premium on used Tacomas," he says, adding that obvious bonuses like a factory warranty and better financing help make buying new model a bit more logical, even if you have to spend more in the long run. And if you have a Tacoma you like, don't sell. The market isn't going to loosen considerably in the next 12 months, Beggs says, so there's no reason to swap trucks now.